Phew! I don't think I could have coped with living in a world where an inspirational humanitarian, focussed on lifting the fortunes of his fellow man, is swapped out by a management consultant focussed on running the world's most powerful nation like a multi-national.
But could it have been any closer? The US was split down the middle more-or-less 50-50 per cent, with only a few tens of thousands voters making the difference. There is so much analysis now in play about how Romney lost - was it the 47 per cent video, #Sandy or the fact that the Democrats' 2008 coalition of the young, women, Hispanics and African Americans (far many more of whom voted this year than in 2008) shut Romney out. But it increasingly seems to me now that it is not so much about Romney losing. I think it is more about how the Democrats managed to prevail on the day - and it is in and of itself a very inspiring story.
You can tell from the moment that a tear rolls down Obama's cheek in this thank you speech to his ground troops the morning after his victory how important he knows their work was. Obviously Bill Clinton played a very important part - but his role should be seen not as an invidual but as a member of a hard-working and highly effective team (as this terrific story explains).
It is a fact that became clear to me very early on in the piece watching the results come in, and seemed so key even at the time that I tweeted the comments from CNN's John King: "we have all under-estimated the Democrats ground game" as it became apparent that the ground troops in Ohio and other tight marginals had a far more effective get-the-vote-out ground game than the Republicans.
The Obama team's use of social was as effective on this occasion as last election, with a tweeted picture of Barack and his wife Michelle on the moment of victory becoming the most re-tweeted tweet ever. But more critically, the @barackobama team ran a campaign around #stayinline as they at some point realised that those still in line when the polls closed still had the right to vote and therefore needed to stay put.
Then this morning, I saw this tweet from my former boss, Marc Benioff, another piece of the puzzle fell into place.
Did Romney's Microsoft decision cost him the presidency?arstechnica.com/information-te…
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) November 9, 2012
It seems despite Romney's pitch to the nation that it took a businessman to manage the country out of its economic woes, not a big-government-arian; it seems his team couldn't manage itself out of a paper bag. Their use of technology seems riddled with school-boy errors and ultimately proved not only ineffective but fully counter-productive. Read this article detailing the unmitigated technology disaster that was the Republican ground game and you'll get a sense of that special brand of business management he would have brought to the American economy had he been elected.
It is singularly hope-inspiring that while this was the most expensive election of all time, with at least a billion in campaign funds blown in just the last few weeks on attack ads, it was the ground game of a few thousand dedicated and highly-motivated troops just working hard - combined with the commitment of a few tens of thousands of supporters making that effort to get out and vote - that made the difference. Despite what the cynics say - you can't buy the most important Democratically elected job in the world - you have to earn it. Barack Obama deserves it not just because of the hope that he inspires in his people; but because of the attention to detail and hard work ethic he instills in his team.
UPDATE: Romney's Digital Director repsonds to criticisms here, saying - amusingly - that he and his team didn't "give up on data" (even though they had given up on 47 per cent of the population).